“Accordingly, Your Honor,” Pruitt said, “we respectfully request a reduction in the respondent’s share of the remaining assets on the grounds of financial hardship.”
He sat down.
My father shifted beside me.
I felt it. The bench creaked. He sat forward, his big hands on his knees.
Then he leaned toward Claire and whispered something in her ear.
I couldn’t hear it. But I saw Claire’s face. Her expression sharpened. Her eyes went wide for just a second, and then narrowed.
She turned and looked at my father.
“Dad?” I murmured.
He didn’t answer.
Across the room, Brian had gone pale.
Ezoic
He wasn’t looking at the table anymore. He was looking at my father. And his face was the color of skim milk.
Ezoic
My father raised his hand slightly. The way you’d raise it in a classroom.
“Your Honor?”
The judge looked up, surprised. In eight months of hearings, my father had never said one word in that courtroom. I don’t think she knew what his voice sounded like.
